FANCY DIAMONDS. Beginning with the hardest of all gems, the _diamond_, we have no difficulty as regards naming, as all specimens of this mineral, regardless of color, are called diamonds. When it is necessary to designate particular colors or tints, or differences in tint, additional names are used--for example, all diamonds of pronounced and pleasing color are called "fancy" diamonds in the trade. Certain of these "fancy" diamonds are still further defined by using a name specifying the color, as, for example, "canary" diamonds (when of a fine bright yellow), or "golden fancies," when of a fine golden brown, or "orange," or "pink," or "absinthe green," or "violet," as the case may be. NAMES OF VARIOUS GRADES OF WHITE DIAMONDS. The great majority of the diamonds which come on the market as cut stones belong, however, to the group which would be spoken of as white diamonds, but many qualifying names are needed to express the degree of approach to pure white possessed by different grades of these diamonds. Thus the terms: 1, _Jägers_; 2, _Rivers_; 3, _Blue Wesseltons_; 4, _Wesseltons_; 5, _Top Crystals_; 6, _Crystals_; 7, _very light brown_; 8, _Top Silver Capes_; 9, _Silver Capes_; 10, _Capes_; 11, _Yellows_, and 12, _Browns_, describe _increasing_ depth of color, and hence _decreasing_ value in diamonds. POPULAR NAMES. Certain more popular names for diamonds of differing degrees of whiteness may next be set forth. The term "blue white" (a much abused expression, by the way) should be applied only to diamonds of such a close approach to pure whiteness of body substance, as seen on edge in the paper that, when faced up and undimmed, they give such a strong play of _prismatic_ blue that any slight trace of yellow in their substance is completely disguised, and the effect upon the eye is notably blue. This would be the case with stones of the grades from 1 through 4 in the list above. Grades 5 and 6 might properly be called "_fine white_," and grades 7, 8, and 9 simply "_white_." Grade 10 is frequently spoken of as "_commercial white_," and grade 11 sometimes as "off color." Grade 12 includes all degrees of brownness except the very light shades and the deep, pretty shades of the "fancy" browns.